[Techtoolslist] 9100FT Programmer’s Keyboard

[Ian Eure]

I finally tracked down a Programmer’s Keyboard for my 9100.  I don’t
know how widely it’s known, but there were two different versions
of the keyboard.  The only photos I’ve seen are the earlier model,
which meant that I almost let this one slip away.  It was on eBay, new
old stock, for $36 shipped!

All the info is in the manuals, if you look.  I had always wondered
why the keyboard illustrations in the Programmer’s Manual didn’t match
the photos of the keyboard I’d seen.  It’s because I read scans of a
later (1991) printing, which has illustrations of the later revision
of the keyboard.  I haven’t seen a 1988 printing, but I bet it shows
the earlier keyboard layout.

The various 9100 service manuals list different part numbers:

9100A Supplemental Parts List (May 1988), fig. 5-21, p. 5-53
----
Lists p/n 5-64995-131.  This seems to be the more common version of
the keyboard.  It has a block of (mostly) 2u keys on the far right,
angled RETURN key, and arrows by the SHIFT and RETURN keys.

Photo: https://i.imgur.com/undefined.png

The Service Manual which this is a supplement to (9100A Service Manual
p/n 809210, May 1988) only lists the Fluke stock number, 757120, in
fig. 5-20 on p. 5-50.


9100FT Service Manual (p/n 910476, November 1991), fig. 5-18, p. 5-49
----
This has new stock and parts numbers.  s/n 887216, p/n E04008051.

The later revision more closely resembles a 1990s 101-key PC keyboard,
with separate numpad and arrow keys.  It seems to work fine on a
9100A.


Since this an uncommon keyboard, I naturally tore it apart and took
some photos of the inside before even plugging it in.  These are
available on
https://www.dropbox.com/s/sa34h6252476012/9100FT-Keyboard.zip?dl=0,
and probably ought to go into the TTL FTP.

It seems to be second-sourced from KeyTronics, which might explain the
lack of documentation (schematics, etc) in the Fluke service manuals.
Even though it looks like a PC keyboard, it uses uncommon capacative
(hybrid mechanical) switches mounted on a metal plate, and feels much
sturdier than the 1990s rubber dome board I was expecting.  The
controller is an 8031, with the program in a 2764 EPROM.  I’m going to
see if I can dump it, though it’s soldered in and I’d prefer not to
remove it.

There are two DIP switches which are accessible via a panel on the
bottom.  I have no idea what (if anything) they do.

I’ve built a few keyboards from kits, so I was hoping that with a good
look inside, it might be possible build a reproduction with the same
microcontroller and program.  While the 8031/2764 is excellent news
for this, the rest is a downer.  There’s an Exar 22-00958-000 IC which
handles the capacitive keyswitches and provides keypress data to the
8031.  It looks like the switches and controller are hard to come by,
which renders the program on the EPROM useless.  Still, maybe someone
could adapt another KeyTronics board, as they seem to be fairly
similar.

Here’s a couple pages I found that have info on KeyTronics keyboards,
and might be useful.

http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthread.php?58612-Key-Tronic-KB3270-Plus-ROM-dump
http://www.seasip.info/VintagePC/kb3270.html
https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=37968.0

  -- Ian